sw michigan utopia brewday - Page 3

**cuinrearview** · 12-13-2010, 08:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FSR402

Well if I have to bring water I'll just do an extract brew then. I can bring my 80qt mashtun if that would help you out. If I had a truck and trailer I could bring my 1bbl system and just let you use that. Can't fit a 55 gallon MLT in the trunk of a charger.

You're making me feel guilty Troy. I'll make sure I have some water here if you want to plan on doing a beer with some of the second and third runnings. All of my faucets pour softened water except for an outside spigot which will be frozen. And yes I'll definately take you up on the offer of your MLT. Erik with that big bastard MLT you should be able to leave yours at home. A Belgian yeast for the third beer sounds interesting but it's totally up to you Troy. I don't know what you have in the pipeline. I have no way of guessing what kind of OG it'll be but it should be at least 1.060. Kind of reminds me of the Bell's competition where you didn't know what you got until you got it and had to just throw something together. I'll have the beer I entered in that here as well. It's different.

So I popped the first bottle of last year's batch last night as a night capper. Thoughts of this thread got me curious. It's interesting. I've never had anything like it. Very sweet, melonoidin rich, and malty. I liken it to drinking mash runnings with alcohol. The alcohol is still pretty prevelant. I won't do 12 oz. again by myself. It's too good and must be shared. I'll have bottles on hand to share on the 8th. Surely THAT should get some more interest in coming out!

No comments on the proposed recipe?

**FSR402** · 12-13-2010, 09:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cuinrearview

You're making me feel guilty Troy. I'll make sure I have some water here if you want to plan on doing a beer with some of the second and third runnings. All of my faucets pour softened water except for an outside spigot which will be frozen. And yes I'll definately take you up on the offer of your MLT. Erik with that big bastard MLT you should be able to leave yours at home. A Belgian yeast for the third beer sounds interesting but it's totally up to you Troy. I don't know what you have in the pipeline. I have no way of guessing what kind of OG it'll be but it should be at least 1.060. Kind of reminds me of the Bell's competition where you didn't know what you got until you got it and had to just throw something together. I'll have the beer I entered in that here as well. It's different.

So I popped the first bottle of last year's batch last night as a night capper. Thoughts of this thread got me curious. It's interesting. I've never had anything like it. Very sweet, melonoidin rich, and malty. I liken it to drinking mash runnings with alcohol. The alcohol is still pretty prevelant. I won't do 12 oz. again by myself. It's too good and must be shared. I'll have bottles on hand to share on the 8th. Surely THAT should get some more interest in coming out!

No comments on the proposed recipe?

I'll plan on bringing my MLT, one burner, kettle and enough water for a 5 gallon extract batch.
For me to do all grain I would nee way more stuff and I don't have a way of getting it there. So that's what I'll do.

**bsdx** · 12-15-2010, 04:06 AM

I should be able to make it, I just saw this today. I have two 60q cube MLT I could bring if needed but you also got an offer, so either way.

I'm also planning to go through Vermont before the brewday so I could pick up some maple syrup there if you want. I've heard people recommend grade B over A for beer? Let me know if I should pick any up.

I don't think you'll need to worry about 140 ibu, you can't really get above 100 especially with this gravity, so you can probably throw as much bitterness as you want at it without restraint, just like an IIPA.

I'm hoping to bottle a wide sampling of my homebrew from kegs this month so I should have a selection to bring.

I can't really comment on the grainbill, I'm not very experienced in the perception of grains yet. carastan is yummy though, I could snack on it dry. If you think of grain or hops you want to use that you dont have, I have a big selection and would be willing to donate some to the cause. I have a good amount of 2row that I hardly ever use too.

eriktlupus · 12-15-2010, 05:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FSR402

I'll plan on bringing my MLT, one burner, kettle and enough water for a 5 gallon extract batch.
For me to do all grain I would nee way more stuff and I don't have a way of getting it there. So that's what I'll do.

you can use some of the runnings from the batch if you want. we do it partigyle style. we'll take the 1st runnings for the main batch and the first rinse for a cascadian style IIPA after that you guys are welcome to use any thats left

Quote:

Originally Posted by bsdx

I should be able to make it, I just saw this today. I have two 60q cube MLT I could bring if needed but you also got an offer, so either way.

I'm also planning to go through Vermont before the brewday so I could pick up some maple syrup there if you want. I've heard people recommend grade B over A for beer? Let me know if I should pick any up.

I don't think you'll need to worry about 140 ibu, you can't really get above 100 especially with this gravity, so you can probably throw as much bitterness as you want at it without restraint, just like an IIPA.

I'm hoping to bottle a wide sampling of my homebrew from kegs this month so I should have a selection to bring.

I can't really comment on the grainbill, I'm not very experienced in the perception of grains yet. carastan is yummy though, I could snack on it dry. If you think of grain or hops you want to use that you dont have, I have a big selection and would be willing to donate some to the cause. I have a good amount of 2row that I hardly ever use too.

dont worry about the syrup yet. we usually don't need it till march/april anyway and then we can get fresh local stuff for it. the target before syrup addition is somewhere in the 1.160-1.170 range.

**FSR402** · 12-16-2010, 12:17 PM

I'll plan on using the 3rd runnings for a 5 gallon batch then. But I'll bring some extract in case I want to bump it up some. I'll also bring a bunch of different hops and yeast and figure out what I'll use after I see the wort.
This should be fun.

Another question. What do you have for cooking on? I wont have room to bring a cooker (unless I get Mike to go and he drives) so that will determine what food I make.

**cuinrearview** · 12-16-2010, 08:37 PM

Unfortunately Troy I'm just starting to think about somking. I have a propane fired grill, that's it. I could probably get my hands on my Dad's stand up Brinkmann ECB smoker but it's completely unmodified and would have to stay that way. Other than that it's the typical household appliances. You are welcome to any of those.

One thing to think about as well. Not sure what size pot you're sportin' but you can always sparge more and boil down. Ten gallons of a session beer will be an option as well. The refractometer will be our friend here. The main batch will be a good six-eight hour boil so not like we'll have anything to do, unless you want to shovel my 100 yards of driveway

**FSR402** · 12-17-2010, 01:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cuinrearview

Unfortunately Troy I'm just starting to think about somking. I have a propane fired grill, that's it. I could probably get my hands on my Dad's stand up Brinkmann ECB smoker but it's completely unmodified and would have to stay that way. Other than that it's the typical household appliances. You are welcome to any of those.

One thing to think about as well. Not sure what size pot you're sportin' but you can always sparge more and boil down. Ten gallons of a session beer will be an option as well. The refractometer will be our friend here. The main batch will be a good six-eight hour boil so not like we'll have anything to do, unless you want to shovel my 100 yards of driveway

I told Mike about this tonight and he wants to come. Now once his wife hears about it that could change. So If he comes he will drive and I can bring a cooker. Now if you got a pot big enough I run two burners under mine and in my big kettle (55 gallons) I get about 6gal/hour boil off. You would just need a kettle that is large enough in DIA to give you a lot of surface. and some side wall that would keep it in with that much heat going to it.

eriktlupus · 12-17-2010, 05:53 AM

we used a sq-14 last year with a keggle. i think after doing a couple more batches on that burner that the gas was choked on that particular burner. also being indoors fully i'm pretty sure it saturated the air with moisture and extended the boil by al least 2hrs.

this yr we'll be able to run the utopia on a dedicated line with the IIPA on it's own as well. that alone should cut our total boil by another 1-2hrs( we boiled the second runnings down from 9g to 5g in i think 4hrs on the 10g polarware).

think it's time to start looking through the hops to see what i can come up with for a hop bill. after xmas i'll get the stirplate running (need to see if i can find some wlp 060). hey anyone got a slant of pacman available??? never used it but i hear it'll eat through a lot of sugar.

**cuinrearview** · 12-18-2010, 12:35 AM

First sack of grain to ever enter my home

. Take 11lbs. out and everything else there is the grist. Who else thinks that vial of WLP099 looks like the skinny kid cornered in the locker room in high school?

Some suprise substitutions to the grain bill as well! The Red Salamander was out of Victory, so I subbed more biscuit and, lol, some rice! Suggestion from the guy there I like. I asked for "one more thing" and he laughed and suggested a lb. of rice. I like his style. Anyway, the only other sub was cherrywood smoked malt for the rauch. That stuff smelled like bacon in heaven!!

**FSR402** · 12-18-2010, 01:23 AM

Nice, I just crushed up 38 pounds of grain tonight for a blonde ale brew in the morning. Making 25 gallons, 10 for me, 10 for Mike and 5 for another friend. Mike wanted to do 35 gallons but then I have to use the big MLT. 25 gallons I only need the 80qt tun. Have to use the 55 gallon kettle but that's fine.

Hope you make one hell of a big starter. My BW that started at 1.150 I used 5 packs of dry us-05 in a 5 gallon batch. It still crapped out at a 1.040.